


Just For One Day

by mynameisnemo



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: David Bowie Tribute, Domestic, Fluff, Gen, Pizza, sleepover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 14:09:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5931205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisnemo/pseuds/mynameisnemo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What is this, is this a cat dying?  Have you fatally injured a cat in here, Steven?”</p>
<p>Steve startled, banging his head on the hood as he straightened up.  “What?  No, man, it’s Bowie.  You know David Bowie, right?  Major Tom?  Iggy Stardust?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just For One Day

“Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, we know Major Tom’s a junkie, strung out on his heaven’s high-”

“What is this, is this a cat dying?  Have you fatally injured a cat in here, Steven?”

Steve startled, banging his head on the hood as he straightened up.  “What?  No, man, it’s Bowie.  You know David Bowie, right?  Major Tom?  Iggy Stardust?”

Danny raised his eyes to the heavens, asking for strength from where he was standing in the garage doorway, silhouetted by the Hawai’ian late afternoon sun.  “Do I know Bowie?  You know I was married to a British citizen, right?  He’s asking if I know Bowie.  Let me tell you, that was not Bowie, that was a half dead cat murdering Bowie.” He stepped into the garage, raising up on tiptoes to get a look at where Steve was rubbing the back of his head.  “Did you give yourself a brain injury on this hunk of scrap metal?”

“What?” Steve asked, leaning down to give Danny better access.  “No, I’ve done that like half a dozen times, it’s just tender.”

Having ascertained that there was no visible damage, Danny nodded, stepping away and leaning against the side of the Marquis to peer down at the engine.  “What’s wrong with it now?”

Steve hefted the drill he was holding, waving it in the direction of the block.  “I was replacing the water pump and a couple of the bolts twisted off.  Now I’ve got to drill them out.  What are you doing here so early?”

“My friend, it is not early, it is dinner time and I have hungry monkeys.  Did you forget we were coming over?”

Steve glanced at his watch, noting that it was indeed dinner time.  “Nah, I just got distracted by this and I was thinking about when I was a kid and my mom used to play Bowie records.  Must have lost track of time.” Steve laid the drill on a work bench and picked up a shop rag, wiping his hands on it.  “Where are the kids?”

Danny gestured toward the house.  “Inside.  Charlie announced that he needed to potty as we pulled in the driveway and Grace is helping while I track down Uncle Steve and find out what his dinner plans are.”

Steve winced, he’d planned on burgers but it was getting pretty late.  

“I’m guessing Uncle Steve forgot to make dinner?” Danny asked, reaching out to push Steve towards the door.  

Steve smiled at being ushered into his own home and flung the greasy rag onto the nearest flat surface.  “I didn’t forget, I just-”

“Lost track of time, yeah yeah.  But now we’ve got two hungry kids and no food.”

"Three hungry kids,” Steve corrected.  “And, well, how about pizza?  I’ve got a whole bunch of frozen ones stashed for emergencies.”

"Sounds like an emergency to me,” Danny replied.  “And what three?  I hope you’re not calling me a kid because if you think I’m the immature one in this partnership, well, let me tell you, babe, you’ve got another-”

“I had already invited Nahele over,” Steve cut into Danny’s rant.  “I’ve been trying to spend more time with him since all that stuff with his dad, you know.”

Danny nodded.  “Yeah, that’s a good thing you’re doing there.”

Steve grabbed a bottle of orange goo and got to work scrubbing his hands in the kitchen sink.  “Go ahead and preheat the oven, I’ll grab the pizza in a minute.”

Danny did as asked before popping his head into the living room to see what the kids were doing.  Grace was studying on the couch while Charlie scribbled in a colouring book on the floor.  Danny took a moment to thank all that is good in the universe that Grace was such a good older sister and willing to take care of Charlie when needed.  Considering all that had happened since he and Rachel had split, she could have easily gone the other way in accepting the new addition to the family.  

“Hell of a thing,” Steve was saying as Danny pulled back into the kitchen, trying not to disturb what looked like a genuinely quiet moment in the living room.  

“What?” Danny asked.

“Were you not listening?” Steve asked.  “This is why we’re in therapy.  I was saying I can’t believe Bowie died.”

Danny rolled his eyes at the therapy remark but ignored it.  “Yeah, hard to believe.  End of an era for sure.  I must have listened to _Black Tie White Noise_ a couple thousand times the year I graduated high school.”

“ _Black Tie White Noise_?” Steve asked.  “Really?  I mean, it was good stuff, sure, but I always thought his older stuff was better.”

Danny drifted to the fridge, grabbing two Longboards and popping the tops off before holding one out for Steve to take.  “I guess that was the thing about him, he had music that everyone could love.  I mean, he made music for like fifty years and it never got old.”

“Yeah, but I still can’t believe you thought _Black Tie White Noise_ was that good.”

“You know what, Steven-”

The debate was cut short by the sound of the front door opening.  

“Hello?”

“Nahele!” Grace cried.  “Danno, Uncle Steve, Nahele is here!”

Steve went to greet Nahele and Danny stayed in the kitchen.  “Sure, leave me to make dinner when you said you’d do it,” he mumbled, pulling the frozen pizzas out of the freezer.  Sorting through them he noticed that there were a couple plain cheese ones along with the more standard meat and veggie varieties.  Since the only person he could think of who ate plain cheese pizza was Charlie, Danny had to smile.  Steve was such a boyscout.

Steve trooped into the kitchen, Nahele, Grace, and Charlie following along behind him, just as Danny put the first couple pizzas in the oven.  “Hey, thanks, man.  Nahele, there’s some sodas in the pantry, want to grab them?  Grace, set the table?” As Grace and Nahele complied, Steve looked down at Charlie, who had reached out to rest a hand on Steve’s knee.  “And what about you, little man?” Steve leaned down, picking the kid up.  “Want to help me…” He trailed off, looking around for something to do.

Danny grinned.  “Good job, you’ve delegated yourself out of having to do any work.”

Steve grinned back.  “Well, you know, it’s a sign of good leadership skills to be able to delegate.”

“Yes, because lack of leadership skills is what makes you-” Danny cut himself off, noticing that Grace and Charlie were paying rapt attention to him.  “Nevermind.  So, what shall we do after dinner?”

“Watch a movie?” Steve suggested.  At Danny’s doubtful look he raised the hand not occupied with supporting Charlie in defense.  “I have a Netflix account.  I’m sure we can find something age appropriate.”

“Babe!”  Charlie announced.  

“Isn’t that the pig movie?” Nahele asked, setting and armful of assorted flavour sodas on the table.  

“I don’t think Netflix has that one,” Danny said, frowning.

“He means Labyrinth,” Grace supplied, selecting a soda.  “We’ve watched it like five times since Tuesday.  Mom’s been in mourning.”

Danny shook his head in amazement.  “It’s a good movie but that’s a lot.”

Grace shrugged.  “I like it.” She reached out, taking Charlie from Steve and wiggled a little, telling him “you remind me of the babe.”

“What babe?” Charlie lisped back, familiar with the prompt.

Danny tuned them out as the oven timer dinged, turning to check the pizzas.  When he turned back to deposit it on the table and grab the next ones, Steve and Nahele were both staring at Grace and Charlie where she was dancing them around the table, singing ‘Magic Dance’.

“Danny,” Steve drawled,  “what are your kids doing?”

“Doing the ‘Magic Dance’,” Danny replied, turning back to the oven.  “You know, ‘slime and snails, or puppy dog tails’?”  He turned back to find Nahele and Steve giving each other blank looks across the table.  “What, you don’t know ‘Magic Dance’?  And you asked if I knew Bowie?  Seriously?”

Steve just shook his head, unable to formulate an answer.

“Okay, we’re definitely watching Labyrinth, we have uncultured philistines in our midst, right Gracie?”

Grace nodded wide as she looked at Steve.  “Uncle Steve, you don’t know Bowie?”

“I do,” Steve tried to defend himself but Danny held up a hand to interrupt.  

“He thinks he does, Monkey, but he doesn’t like _Black Tie White Noise_ either.”

“Hey, I never said-” Steve started in the face of Grace’s wide eyed look of disbelief but stopped when she whirled to face Nahele.  

“Do you like _Black Tie White Noise_?”

Nahele looked around, as if he was drowning and was hoping someone would toss him a life preserver.  “Uhhh, I have no idea what you guys are talking about.”

Danny winced.  “Wrong thing to say, kid.”

Nahele looked around bewildered as Grace gasped, putting her hands over her heart with an air of over exaggerated drama that was very reminiscent of her mother when she was feeling playful.  After a beat Charlie mimicked her perfectly and Danny had to bit his lip to keep from busting out laughing.  Steve just turned on his heel and headed out to the garage.  

Danny shrugged at Nahele, going to utensil drawer to hunt up a pizza slicer.  It was anyone’s guess what Steve was up to out there, or even if his abrupt departure was related to the topic at hand or if it was some other Mission that he’d just remembered.  

It only took Steve a moment to return, carrying an honest to god old school boombox with him.  He set it on the counter and fiddled with the buttons for a moment before hitting play.  As the opening riff to ‘Suffragette City’ started playing, Grace started dancing again.  Danny envied her boundless energy.  

Danny bopped along to the music as he cut up the pizza, pulled out the one from the oven and stuck another in, and finished off his Longboard after joining Steve and Grace in yelling ‘wham bam thank ya ma’am!’.  Grace progressed to trying to teach Nahele how to do the dance from the Knight movie to Golden Days, while Danny intercepted Steve.  He was holding Charlie again, pouring him a soda.

“No soda for Charlie,” Danny intervened, swiping the cup from Steve and chugging it.  He burped as loud as he could and Charlie’s imminent tantrum became a giggle.  Score one for Danno.  “You want some milk, monkey?”

Charlie shook his head.  “Juice.”

Danny glanced at Steve who shrugged.  “Maybe, I’ll see what I have.” He put Charlie down and headed to the fridge.  “Let’s see.  You wanted water, right Charlie-boy?”  He teased as Charlie leaned against his legs, looking into the fridge.  

“Juice,” Charlie replied.

“Oh, milk?” Steve looked back at Danny, winking.  

“Juice!”

“Water?” Steve asked, leaning down to Charlie’s level.

“JUICE!”

Steve stood up fast, rubbing his ear.  “Alright, alright, juice it is, why didn’t you say so?”

“I did!” Charlie huffed, glaring up at Steve with his hands on his hips.  

Steve retrieved a bottle of apple juice, holding it up to Danny for approval.  Danny nodded, handing over a cup with a lid that he’d brought with them to prevent any accidents on Steve’s carpet.  “Half and half with water.  We’re trying not to over sugar him.”

Steve nodded, complying with the instructions.  The last couple pizzas were ready and Danny got to work slicing Charlie’s pieces into more manageable size after turning off the oven.  The kid would be a total disaster if he gave him normal sized pieces.

“Whoa, did you make enough?” Steve asked, raising his eyebrows at all the pizzas that had accumulated on the table.  

 Danny shrugged.  “You, my friend,” he indicated Steve with the pizza slicer, “and Nahele could easily eat a whole pie each since he is a growing teenage boy and you have the metabolism of one.  And don’t let the media lie to you, teenage girls eat just as much as teenage boys do so Gracie gets her own pizza too.  Which leaves me and Charlie here with normal sized appetites.  Besides, who doesn’t like cold pizza for breakfast?”

Steve made a face of disgust and Danny sighed.  “Heathen,” he pronounced, then stuffed half a slice in his mouth, ending his commentary on the matter.

“I’d just rather have some fresh fruit,” Steve prodded, grinning.  “Like pineapple.”

Danny chose not to dignify the comment.  Dinner after that was quiet, Bowie singing about stars and being in a rock band and love in the background while they all ate.  Danny reflected that it had been a while since they had all sat down and had a meal together like some weird dysfunctional made up family.  It was nice, he’d have to suggest to Steve that they make it a habit.  

“I’ll do the dishes later,” Steve suggested, once everyone had slowed to a halt.  “It’s getting kind of late if we’re going to watch a movie.”

“I’m going to get this monkey ready for bed.  I doubt he’ll last through the whole thing,” he said and picked Charlie up from his chair, wincing as pizza crust crumbs rained down on him.  

“I’ll get it set up,” Steve said.  “You want another Longboard?  Since you don’t have to drive?”

Danny nodded, heading upstairs to the spare room Steve used as an office-cum-guestroom, where he knew Grace would have put her and Charlie’s things.  Sure enough, both of their overnight backpacks were there, hers on the bed and Charlie’s on the blow up twin mattress that Steve must have made up before he got lost under the hood of the Marquis.  

Charlie was already yawning by the time Danny got him into the bathroom to wash up and brush his teeth.  On the way back downstairs he detoured into the guestroom again, setting Charlie down on the mattress.  “Hang on a second while Danno makes sure Uncle Steve didn’t forget anything in here, alright?”  Charlie nodded, rubbing a fist against his eyes and Danny wondered if he would even make it back downstairs before he passed out.  

It only took a few minutes to rifle through the desk and closet and nightstand and the dresser drawers and look behind the furniture, looking for anything dangerous.  He came up empty except for a locked box mounted on the top shelf of the closet that probably contained a gun.  After a moment of consideration, Danny decided to leave it alone.  Steve had clearly sanitised the room while he was setting it up for the kids and after the number of times he’d been attacked in his own home, Danny wasn’t going to begrudge him having properly stored weapons in every room if he wanted.  

“Alright, monkey,” Danny said, turning and then stopping as he saw that Charlie had kind of fallen over, his fist still pressed against his cheek, and was sound asleep.  Danny chuckled and covered the kid up with a light blanket, switching the light out as he left the room.  He noted that a nightlight in the corner of the room lit up as he pulled the door to, shaking his head at Steve’s Boy Scout tendencies.

Downstairs Steve was reclined on the couch, Nahele and Grace next to him talking animatedly about ‘Space Oddity’ with room at the other end of the couch for Danny to squeeze in.  

“But it’s kind of sad how at the end he just floats away in space,” Grace was saying.  

"Yeah, but even though it’s sad it’s kind of happy too?  Like he’s going out there on his own terms, you know?”

Danny gave Steve a smile over the top of the kid’s heads.  It was good to see Nahele coming out of his shell a little bit and Grace, unselfconscious and undemanding as she was, knew exactly how to draw him out.  

“Alright, are we ready for this?” Danny asked, draping an arm around Grace’s shoulders so that she could snuggle in and get comfortable.

“Where’s Charlie?”  Grace asked once she had herself tucked in along his side.  

“Sleeping, it’s been a long day and he’s still easily tired after the hospital and all that, you know.”

Grace nodded, focusing her attention on the screen where David Bowie’s face was staring out at them.  “Play, Uncle Steve,” she commanded.

~.~

“Wow.”

Danny looked over Nahele and Grace’s heads at Steve.  “You aren’t kidding.”

Steve just shook his head at the credits which were still rolling.  “Wow.”

“You know, I don’t actually remember it being that, I don’t know…”

“Weird?” Steve suggested.  “Messed up?  Creepy?  You and your muppet movies, Danno.”

Danny stretched his arms up above his head, trying to get some feeling back in the one Grace had been leaning against and wincing at the feelings of a damp spot on the side of his shirt where his princess of a daughter had been drooling for the last hour.  

“What’s the matter?” Steve asked, shifting Nahele sideways so that he could stand up out from under him, then guiding him down flat onto the couch.  The teenager didn’t even wake up.

“Just the glamour of fatherhood,” Danny answered, gesturing to the spot on his shirt.  

Steve shot him a disgusted look, which made Danny laugh, which in turn woke up Grace.  

“Danno?”

“Hey, babe, go to bed, okay?  Movie’s over.”

She sat up, planting a sloppy kiss on his cheek.  “Okay.  Night, Danno.”

“Goodnight, princess,” he said, pushing her off the couch and in the direction of the stairs.  

Danny levered himself off the couch, following Steve to put away the leftovers and wash up.  If left up to him, he would have just left the dishes for morning but there was no way Steve would let that fly.  Mr. Obsessively Tidy couldn’t leave a messy kitchen to wake up to, no way.  Danny wondered if it was a trait inherent to Steve or maybe just one drilled into him by years on active duty but either way it was kind of cute in an annoying, neurotic kind of way.

“So what’s your favourite song?” Steve asked, making Danny startle out of his idle musing.

“What, from the movie?”

Steve shrugged, running the dishes under water because he was the exact type of person who washed his dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.  “Or any of Bowie’s stuff.  If you had to pick just one song.”

Danny hummed, thinking through the backlog.  “See, now that’s a hard one.  ‘Cause when I was married I would have said ‘Suffragette City’, ‘cause, you know, Rachel.  But growing up it was ‘Space Oddity’, wasn’t that everyone’s favourite?” He paused, ducking down to get the broom under the table where about half of Charlie’s meal seemed to have ended up.  “And now Charlie and Gracie love ‘Magic Dance’.  But, you know, I think I’m going to have to go with ‘Jean Genie’.”

Steve quirked a smile at him before leaning down to add soap to the dishwasher.  “That your final answer?”

Danny scowled at him.  “What’s that supposed to mean?  Yes, yes, that’s my final answer.  ‘Jean Genie’.  I have a lot of fond memories of that song.”

“What, did you lose your virginity while listening to it or something?”

Danny could feel himself blushing, he could feel it and tried to stop it but it was too late, Steve had already seen.  

“Really?” Steve stuck a fist out in Danny’s direction, looking for a fist bump.  “Awesome, good choice.”

Danny ignored the extended hand.  “Thank you,” he said, trying to maintain what was left of his dignity.

Steve just laughed at him some more.  “Mine is ‘Heroes’.

“The song you lost your virginity to?  ‘Cause, ah, I don’t really-”

“No, no,” Steve interrupted.  “My favourite Bowie song.  ‘Heroes’.”

Danny paused, switching tracks in his head.  “Oh.  Well.  Of course it is.”

Steve tilted his head, staring down at Danny where he was crouched sweeping crumbs into a dustpan.  “What do you mean by that?”

Danny shrugged, standing to dump the dustpan into the trashcan.  “Just, it’s very you.  Very fitting.  I would have guessed ‘Heroes’ or ‘Rebel Rebel’.”

Steve nodded.  “Yeah, that would be my next choice.”

“Of course it would,” Danny repeated, putting the broom and dustpan away and heading back to the living room.  “Guess I’ll be sleeping in the armchair tonight,” he observed, nodding at where Nahele was still passed out cold on the couch.  

“Nah, I cleaned out a guest room.  Well, sorta.” Steve motioned upstairs.  “We’ll let him sleep down here, he’s been working hard lately, think he just needs some rest.”

Danny raised his eyebrows.  “Wait, what’s ‘sorta’ mean?”

“It means there’s a bed,” Steve assured, “and clean sheets.  And a lot of boxes that dad put in there after mom died and he sent Mare and me to the mainland.”

Danny followed Steve up the stairs to one of the doors off the landing that had been closed and locked on his previous stays.  Now it was still closed but unlocked, as he saw when Steve turned the handle and the door swung inward, revealing a made up bed and a wall of boxes against the off-white shiplap boards of the wall on the far side of the room.  

“You’ve been going through your dad’s stuff?” Danny asked.

“Yeah.  After Wo Fat and,” he sighed.  “Everything.  It thought it would be a good idea.  Mostly it’s just old case stuff, tax papers, stuff that should have been thrown out a long time ago.”

Danny nodded, reaching out to rest a hand on Steve’s shoulder.  He didn’t say anything because there wasn’t really anything to say.  Sometimes when he looked at Steve he felt that same wave of stomach churning sadness.  The same one he’d had in that nightmare inducing torture chamber they had found Steve in, the one that he’d felt when Steve had asked for his father and Danny had realised he was going to have to break the news to him all over again.  But Steve had seemed to have leveled out a bit more now that Wo Fat was dead.  If his method of getting over the torture and the drugging and the general messed-up-ness of thinking his four-years-dead father was still alive was to clean out boxes of old paperwork then Danny wasn’t going to criticise.  

“Hey, thanks, man.”

“For what?” Steve looked down at himself incongruously, looking for what had sparked the topic change.

“Letting us stay over, offering to cook even though you didn’t, giving up your whole Fortress of Solitude motif for a night while I get the A/C fixed at the house.  I really didn’t want to have to tell Rachel she could have the kids back on my weekend.”

Steve shrugged.  “No problem, Danno.  Ohana, hey?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Danny gave Steve a grin and a pat on the shoulder.  “Thanks.  Eighty degrees in the middle of January is just.  Not sane.  Especially without A/C.”

Steve smiled the smile that Danny knew meant he was laughing at Danny’s mainlander-ness but Danny just shrugged it off.  

“You know ohana goes both ways.  Anytime you need to talk…”

Steve nodded but his demeanor changed and Danno knew they wouldn’t be continuing the heart to heart tonight.  “Goodnight, Danno.”

“Goodnight, Steven.” Danny waved, watching as Steve wandered off down the hall towards his own room, humming almost under his breath.  

 

_”We can be heroes, just for one day,_

_We can be us, just for one day.”_

**Author's Note:**

> R.I.P. David Bowie


End file.
